On March 3, 2009, six days before the end of the worst bear market since the Great Depression, Obama urged skittish investors to buy beaten-down U.S. stocks. At a time when fear was high and it seemed like stocks would never stop falling, he said valuations "are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."

"You have to give him credit for that market call," says Ed Yardeni, president of investment advisory firm Yardeni Research.

Obama's prognostication was spot on. Despite all the criticism he has received since the Great Recession for backing bailouts of banks and automakers, and using borrowed money to stimulate the economy, stocks have responded positively. The current bull market, which turns 4 on March 9, is up 120 percent and ranks eighth best of all time, Bespoke says.

But does the president deserve all the credit for a bull market that just keeps going? Not likely, even though investment and political cycles are often tied together, says Yardeni. "It is not the sole determining factor, nor the most significant factor."

J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade, says Obama deserves credit, but he also had the benefit of a "little bit of luck," the knowledge that big stimulus was in the pipeline, as well as being in "the right place at the right time."

Behind the Obama bounce:

-- Oversold market was due for a rebound. The stock market cratered 57 percent in the bear market that ended two months after Obama took office. The 18-month-long recession ended five months after Obama's inauguration, and stocks tend to rise when the economy emerges from recession. In FDR's first term beginning in 1933 after the Great Depression, stocks rallied 149 percent, says S&P Capital IQ.

-- Fed help. The Federal Reserve's aggressive policies to jump-start the economy, including 0 percent short-term interest rates and the purchase of government and mortgage-backed bonds to keep borrowing costs low, have been a major help for stocks during Obama's term, Yardeni says.

"I would say that the great performance of the stock market has a lot more to do with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke than Obama," Yardeni says.

History says stock returns are more muted in a president's final term in office. Since 1900, stocks have risen just 10.2 precent, on average in term two, vs. a gain of 67 percent in first terms, says Bespoke.

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